Sovereignty and The Shit Butty

I’ve had a three-day chest infection, it’s pissing down in late June and to top it all I’ve found myself politically aligned with George Osborne.

You know you’re fucked when the current Tory Prime Minister resigns after a nation’s vote of no confidence and you’re not jubilant. I’m not at all unhappy with the gormless cretin’s departure and it’ll be nice to be rid of Daily Mail click-bait articles on Sam Cam’s choice of outfit at Royal Ascot, but it’s not offering me the sort of profound joy it should.

And instead of liberal sound-bites about how sad I feel; or projected statistics on economic decline, here’s why:

Nigel Farage is a Nazi.

Not a bumbling buffoon, with differing political views to me. Not an ex-banker with silly taste in clothing and green teeth. He’s not a chain-smoking, straight-talker who’s only saying what we’re all thinking in a nation of bureaucracy gone mad. He’s a fucking Nazi. He’s a bona fide racist in a party full of racists with nothing to lose. He’s left his post after election defeats before scuttling back, conceded a defeat before his ultimate fucking victory and defended colleagues involved in absolute, proven race hate.

Blair, Johnson, Osborne, Cameron, and even Gove also are all insufferable, sinister pricks. They’ve all been involved in policy and practice, that is self-serving and at times unconscionable. They’ve started and supported wars, whipped up unreasonable support against vulnerable people, tried to dismantle the NHS, lied, cheated and backtracked. They’re an enemy of the poorest in our society and I don’t ever want to be on their team in any sense, least of all politically.

It’s worth saying at this point that there should never have even been a referendum. It was offered so a central-right politician could garner the support of his right-wing lunatic party in order to be a shit Prime Minister for a short period in which he convinced a nation of poor people to be even poorer for a bit, because the bankers spunked their dosh.

There should never have been a referendum, because a political referendum that is legally binding should never have an option that includes certain economic doom for a whole nation. You don’t offer the kids chocolate or heroin in the hope they’ll go for the fucking Twix.

There was a problem with lies and rhetoric on both sides of the campaign, which could easily have been negated by an independent panel with financial experts from both sides of the campaign offering impartial wisdom on likely outcomes, which would’ve negated some of the deep regret many leave voters are currently experiencing and are likely to experience in the coming years.

But you’re fucked from the start when – fundamentally – neither Corbyn or Cameron really wanted to stay within the EU so the efficiency of their campaign is sort of irrelevant.

But what I’ve done here is take an elitist position that is making an assumption that staying within the EU is the humane, intellectual position and that all those voting are indoctrinated thickies who’ve been duped.

That’s not the whole truth.

Poor people are the pawns in any given situation.

If I were a Muslim in Barnsley and subject to the decade long trickle trickle of “I’m not racist but…” social media memes with a St George Cross in the background, and I’d experienced daily hostility and felt disempowered and isolated, you can understand how extremist propaganda from I.S., or the like, might become attractive – someone, somewhere is offering you (for their own primarily financial reasons) an enemy based on perceived fundamental difference, and because you’re suffering you desire an outlet.

If I were a white middle-aged fella in Barnsley and subject to the decade long trickle trickle of “I’m not racist, but…” social media memes with a St George Cross in the background, and I’ve experienced problems with the health service and I’m in shit housing and every second ‘documentary’ on television is about how Ukrainian Benefit Scroungers are living the Vida Loca in twelve-bedroomed mansions, created from pure Italian granite, you can understand how propaganda (from the nicely housed and affluent Nazi Nigel Farage and) from long-standing racists with an agenda of hate (for their own, primarily financial reasons) offering you an enemy based on perceived fundamental difference might become attractive to you.

I’ve been bollocked before, so I’m ok with people being outraged by the comparison I’ve made above, but I stand by it. You’re a pawn.

The problem with Nationalism, as has been proven historically, is that it causes war. The EU was a sort of response to that. An imperfect, flawed and definitely corrupt solution, but the fundamental message is that we’re ALL THE FUCKING SAME. We all want healthcare, a nice house, to live peacefully and to love and look after one another, and our families. This is the absolute case whether you’re from Scunthorpe or Syria and the main message from this whole Brexit thing is that young people get it – even the poor young people – and that old people, particularly old poor people, don’t.

And this is the main reason the entire thing is just so fucking sad (liberal soundbite alert). That millions of people have bought into an idea peddled by a shitload of corrupt politicians and indisputable racists, all of whom are significantly richer than them, that the reason they’re poor is that we’re not all the same and there’s an enemy that doesn’t have our values and it’s them that fucked the NHS, not say, Hunt or Blair.

Here’s what will happen: it won’t be absolute end of days, but you’re looking at a future dismantling of the EU as other countries, each entrenched with their own equivalent of the St George Cross meme politics, demand their own “Closed Borders” and “Sovereignty” and “We just want control of our own laws…” type behaviours and as the right-wing parties in each European country gain more support and momentum, we are weakened as a continent because we are fractured. The only potential World Leaders to congratulate us on Brexit are famous fascists Trump and Le Pen.

Ultimately, both World Wars evolved from a deep rhetoric of Nationalism and the biggest mistake of the internet era is underestimating the power of a right wing agenda on very poor people. Last time Judaism, Communists and Gays… This time it’s Islam.

“It’s only a St George’s Cross! It’s my national flag – I’m proud of my country, I’m not a racist!”

I’d be willing to bet “I’m not a racist…” is one of the most commonly used statements on social media.

I’d also be willing to bet that if Facebook was around in 1939 you’d have had Germans saying the same thing. And it’s not straight-forward racism; It’s fear. It’s fear and feeling disenfranchised and isolated and believing in an agenda that has been specifically designed to work on that fear.

Any economic repercussions will only be felt by the poor fuckers who’ve voted to leave and it will happen so insidiously, in this New Media age that they might not even register it came as a direct consequence of 23rd June 2016.

There are no new hospitals coming. In fact, key Leave campaigners want a privatised health service. There won’t be fewer immigrants, because border controls rely on harmonious relationships with countries in a continent we’ve just said ta-ra to.

But it’s not this nuts and bolts socio economic forecasting that really matters. The pound will stabilise, the world goes on.

It’s that we’ve not learnt the lessons of history. It’s that in the new media age the right have flourished and thrived and we’re living in Enoch Powell, Rivers of Blood rhetoric territory. It’s that this same shit is likely to happen in America, leading to Boris Johnson and Donald Trump photo opportunities as the very poorest get poorer and our standing not as national, but global citizens becomes weaker and more fractured.

We’ve let the trickle trickle go on for too long with the strongest responses being two-day outrage on Twitter. It’s time for there to be real, tangible opposition to this politics of self. Young people need to mobilise and create a viable political narrative so that disenfranchised poor people can have something other than the Trump/Farage agenda of hate to subscribe to.